Porsche Promises the Next 911 Won’t Go Electric

After showing off the gorgeous Mission E concept at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show, Porsche waited only a few months to confirm plans to put the electric sports sedan into production. It’s currently scheduled to go on sale in 2019, and Porsche’s said it expects to sell about 20,000 a year. But as serious as Porsche is about taking on the Tesla Model S, don’t expect the Mission E’s electric powertrain to make it into the 911 anytime soon.

Porsche released a few next-generation 911 teasers today, essentially showing off the entire car. As you can see, it looks a lot like the current 911, but after more than 50 years of incremental updates, that’s to be expected. The significant changes are almost always hidden under the sheetmetal. But while we may eventually see an electrified 911, the next generation will definitely not drop its internal combustion engine.

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“Just to preclude any misunderstandings: the Porsche 911, Type 992 is not an electric sports car. But it could be an option somewhere down the line,” Porsche said in a press release.

When it comes to electrification, 911 boss August Achleitner said he’d had a change of heart. “Two years ago I’d have said no way. Today I wouldn’t categorically rule it out,” said Achleitner. “I drove the prototype of our coming electric sports car, the Mission E, and it was a very compelling experience. And the performance of the Porsche LMP race cars with hybrid drive systems is quite simply sensational.”

But even if he’s open to the idea of electrifying the 911, Achleitner also promised that the 911 will be one of the last cars to adopt autonomous driving. The way he sees it, “Even when it comes to the individual assistance systems, they have to fit with the 911. Those are convenient and useful things. But the customer has to make the choice to use them and, above all, be able to switch them off when they’re not desired.”

Just as the first teaser hit the web, our spy shooter sent shots of the 992-generation 911’s interior. Check it out along with a few past spy shots in the gallery below.